Back جاهلية Arabic جاهليه ARZ Cahiliyyət dövrü Azerbaijani Яһилиәт Bashkir আইয়ামে জাহেলিয়া Bengali/Bangla ЖехӀилийн зама CE Jahiliya Danish Dschāhilīya German Yahilíyyah Spanish جاهلیت Persian

Jahiliyyah

"Jahalia" redirects here. For the Romanian village, see Râșca, Suceava.
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Not to be confused with Ahl al-Fatrah.

Al-Jāhiliyyah (The Age of Ignorance) is a historical era in Islamic salvation history[1] that can describe the pre-Islamic Arabian past or just the Hejaz leading up to the life of Muhammad.[2][3][4]

The Jahiliyyah served as a grand narrative of a morally corrupt social order. Its people (the jahl, sing. jāhil) lacked religious knowledge (ʿilm) and civilized qualities (ḥilm).[5] As a result, they committed polytheism and idol worship, female infanticide, had societies rife with tyranny, injustice, despotism, and anarchy, and prejudice resulted in vainglorious tribal antagonisms.[6] The pre-Islamic age was essentialized into a group of attributes and societal functions that could be condensed into a barbaric way of life that stood in contrast with the mission of Muhammad and the way of life he introduced. Today, these representations are thought to have been historically invented. As a grand narrative or master narrative,[7][8] and as a discourse, it served the role of validating and even necessitating the venture of Islam.[9][10] Analogous grand narratives that have existed across societies include the Age of Enlightenment succeeding a Dark Ages in European history, and the idea that the coming of Jesus Christ served to redeem a world contaminated by Original Sin.[11][7]

The word can also refer to a decadent moral state. In this sense, people have called their own times jahiliyyah to convey a sense of moral decline reminiscent of the pre-Islamic age.[12] Islamists have used this concept of jahiliyyah to criticize un-Islamic conduct in the Muslim world.[13] Prominent Muslim theologians like Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul A'la Maududi, among others, have used the term as a reference to secular modernity and, by extension, to modern Western culture. In his works, Maududi asserts that modernity is the "new jahiliyyah."[14][15] Sayyid Qutb viewed jahiliyyah as a state of domination of humans over humans, as opposed to their submission to God.[16] Likewise, radical Muslim groups have often justified the use of violence against secular regimes by framing their armed struggle as a jihad to strike down modern forms of jahiliyyah.[16] Ibn Taymiyyah and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab have both viewed their fellow Muslims as living in a state of jahiliyyah.[4]

  1. ^ Munt 2015, p. 436.
  2. ^ Webb 2014.
  3. ^ Shepard 2007, p. 37.
  4. ^ a b Shepard 2013.
  5. ^ Munt 2015, p. 436–437.
  6. ^ Webb 2014, p. 69–70.
  7. ^ a b Halverson, Goodall & Corman 2011.
  8. ^ Webb 2014, p. 69–71.
  9. ^ Webb 2016, p. 258.
  10. ^ Tottoli 2023, p. 143.
  11. ^ Webb 2014, p. 83.
  12. ^ Hartung 2014, p. 62–64.
  13. ^ Eleanor Abdella Doumato (rev. Byron D. Cannon) (2009). "Jāhilīyah". In John L. Esposito (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530513-5.
  14. ^ Worth, Robert (13 October 2021). "The Deep Intellectual Roots of Islamic Terror". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 November 2009.
  15. ^ L. Esposito, John (2003). The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 154. ISBN 0-19-512558-4.
  16. ^ a b Jahiliyyah The Oxford Dictionary of Islam
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